• Nuffink

• Cept I might get a pay rise

• Might

Thursday 1

Tidying day.  And constructing wardrobe, chest of drawers and bedside cabinet for the ‘guest room’ which arrives courtesy of Argos.

This house improvement lark has SO got to stop!

Friday 2

My Partner’s two daughters plus one exceptionally pretty, extremely well behaved granddaughter (small people with Yorkshire accents are so cute!) come to visit from Yorkshire.

At their gleeful request, we take them to the Cadbury’s chocolate shop, which is only 10 minutes down the road from us (online site here).

After they leave, my Partner and I sit on sofa together, staring into space, not speaking, not moving.

It’s been one hell of a week.

Saturday 3

We gotta get out of this place, if it’s the last thing we ever do …

The flower show at Kings Heath park, just to get us out of the house before agoraphobia sets in.  Billions of people frantically buying plants, and we’re supposed to meet up with my dad, his wife, my sister and my niece!  Lots of mobile phonecalls were made, “Where are you?”  “By the Evening Mail stand”  “Where?”

Once located, it was difficult for the 6 of us to stay together in the crowds, especially as we all kept darting off to look at different stalls (tools for the men types, plants and pots and pretty garden things for the laydees).  It was like blindly trying to round up sheep.

My Partner had a hankering for cheesy cashews nuts from one stall.  The man weighed some into a bag.  “£7.50,” he said nonchalantly, whilst we both froze in a stunned ‘How Much?’ kind of way.  Guess what we’ll be eating next week … cashew nut casserole, cashew nut sandwiches, maybe a cashew nut omelette or two.

Trudging back to the car park, which seemed about 15 miles away, we came across an oak tree surrounded in acorns.  We began picking them up.  A security guard watched us.  “What you gonna do with them?” he asked, laughing.  “They’re for the squirrels,” my Partner told him.

“We’re not normal, are we?” I whispered.

“Have we ever been?”

The squirrels liked the acorns anyway.  Only problem is, because they bury pretty much everything we feed them, our garden is going to be a forest of oak trees come spring.

Aaaaand back to work.  Heavy sigh.  But … something to look forward to, or not, as the case may be.

I finally get to find out about my pay rise, which will be interesting.  After my fabulous PDR, I’m ready for my eye-wateringly vast financial reward.

I go to fetch The Letter from the glass office of the big boss and cheerfully poke my head round the door.  “Busy?” I ask.  She nods.  “No probs,” I say, backing off, “I’ll come back later.”

Bugger.

Half an hour later, the big boss comes down the office towards me.  I tense in anticipation.  She walks right passed my desk.  I deflate.  Then she turns and walks back again, peers over the desk partition at me and breaks into a huge smile!  “Didn’t mean to scowl at you earlier,” she says, “I was having problems with my computer.  Did you want your pay rise letter?”  I nod.  She beams wider.  “I’ll just go and get it for you.”

And off she goes, all the way back to her office to pick up my letter, then back to my desk again.  “There you go,” she says, still smiling as she hands it to me, “If you have any problems with the contents don’t hesitate to come and see me, okay?”

Another magnificent smile, and then she’s gone.

I stare at the envelope.  Hmmm, big boss being super-nice, must be worse than I thought.

I open the letter.  I ignore the written paragraphs and just look for the figures.  I stare at it for a long, long time.  Then I get up from my desk and leave the building, cigarette clutched in my hand.  Once outside, I punch the air, hissing “Yes!” very quietly whilst doing my wriggly happy dance.

The security guard at the gatehouse was most amused.

Tuesday 6

Obviously traumatised by the excitement of my pay rise yesterday, my tonsils swell and block up my ears.  I spend all day holding my nose and trying to blow my head up like a balloon and asking people to repeat themselves.  I vow to learn to lip read at the earliest possible opportunity.

The only thing I can hear clearly is the sound of my own breathing.  In.  Out.  In.  Out. .Like Darth Vader with asthma.  Seriously gets on my nerves, so I try to stop breathing for long periods, which only makes me dizzy, so start whispering “I am your faaarther” to myself, which has my bosses looking at me with deep concern. 

It’s like living in a sound proof room.

Wednesday  7

New computer software in our office isn’t working how it should (when does it ever).  Secretaries have threatened to hand in their notice in between pulling their hair our and sobbing at their desks.  I haven’t been “upgraded” yet so I can casually sit back and watch everyone else go mental … in fact, I’m the only person in the office with a modicum of sanity left (and that’s tenuous as the best of times). 

One of the struggling secretaries sent an email to everyone saying we couldn’t do this, this and this with the new email system.  I immediately sent one back saying “State of the art software, eh?”  Unfortunately, by mistake, I sent it to everyone in the company.  A terse email from the head of the IT department promptly arrived saying we could get round the problem by doing this, this and this.  I then received a phonecall from him asking if I’d understood the email … the implication being that the IT dept don’t tolerate sarcastic cynicism from the plebs.

“I haven’t been upgraded yet,” I tell him.

“Then how can you possibly complain about software you aren’t even using yet?” he snaps.

“Because,” I drawl, “from where I’m sitting I can see three red faced and extremely stressed out secretaries, a secretary on the verge of tears, another swearing like a navvy and repeatedly throwing her computer screen the V sign, and one just sitting there staring vacantly into space.  Based purely on the desperate atmosphere oozing like a mud slide from that end of the office, I’m guessing things aren’t going exactly to plan with the new software.”

That shut him up.

Thursday 8

I commute.  A lot.  I may have mentioned this before.  To while away the endless hours spent on the bus, I read newspapers, I read books, I stare out of the window and wonder why I’m not lying on a sandy beach somewhere being fanned by Tom Cruise whilst a naked David Duchovny serves me Pimms. 

I also play a game of ‘turn the car registration into a word’ - much less interesting than the David Duchovny scenario but, hey, when the boredom reaches a certain level you’ll try anything.  VMT (on a plush Mercedes Benz no less) becomes VOMIT, CRP becomes CRAP … you get the picture.  Having done this for five years it’s now second nature and I do it without thinking.

Today I saw a long, bright red sports car driven one-handed by a woman who obviously thought she looked too glamorous for words, darlink.  Her registration plate, minus the numbers, literally spelt out the word douche.  Yep, douche.  Now, if you had an expensive red sports car and wanted to go swanning round the city in it showing off, would you want douche on your tail?  No, me neither.

The best reg plate I ever saw was, aptly, on my ex-husband’s brand new motorbike.  He stood next to it, all proud and showy.  I took one look at his reg plate and screamed, ‘PINK PIG!’  He was not amused.

My Partner’s car, incidentally, is HPP, which couldn’t be anything else but HAPPY.

What does your car say? (assuming you can still afford to run one with the rising cost of petrol/liquid gold).

Friday 9

My boss came into the office after two weeks holiday and said, “So, anything interesting happened whilst I was away?”  I wracked my brains for something ‘interesting’ - alien invasion, bit of partner streaking round the office perhaps - but no, nothing.  “So-and-so’s left,” I said lamely, “And the new software’s cr-rubbish.  Oh, and I got my pay rise.”

She sat down in her chair and looked at me solemnly.  “Was it okay?” she asked.

Wow, a decent pay rise and a concerned boss.  “Yes,” I said, “It was fine, thank you.”

And all was well with the world.

My other boss, also having returned from two weeks holiday, was massively jet-lagged.  There have been long periods of ominous silence and I kept checking to make sure he wasn’t sprawled across his desk, and listened out for a tell-tale thump to indicate he’d succumbed and dropped off.  Suspect he’ll be having the longest lie-in in history tomorrow.

Saturday 10

I’m sitting here (at 7am) typing this up in my new study (brag brag).  It’s fabulous, I love it – loadsa space, everything to hand and a view to stare at through the window (currently the squirrel attacking the birds nuts because his box is empty).  

And I dared to doubt the power of a good luck spell!

In the last twelve months (since the house became mine) we have:

Transformed the garden into a haven of serenity		Overhauled the bathroom (a bath! a bath!)
Decorated the living room		Painted the toilet area in the brightest yellow known to man
Turned a festering teenage room into a gorgeous guest room (which said teenager frequently uses during his frequent fall-outs with his girlfriend next door)		And created the study of my dreams

I've had white streaks of paint in my hair for almost a year, but we only have our bedroom, the hallway and the kitchen to go!  It's like painting the Severn Bridge, by the time we've finally finished we'll have to redecorate everything again, by which time my hair will have naturally turned white/grey. 

So, this weekend we are ... having a well deserved rest and doing Absolutely Nothing except sitting back and admiring it all.

Mom came to visit.  She hangs on my Partner’s every word, he’s such a ‘man’. 

“My new mobile phone doesn’t seem to be working properly,” she told him earnestly (because ‘men’ fix things).

 “Why?” he said, all manly-like, “What’s wrong with it?” 

“Well,” says mom, “I think the battery’s faulty.  I charge it up and put it in my bag, but when I take it out again the battery’s flat.” 

“How long is it in your bag for?” my Partner asked, all but pounding his manly chest. 

“Only two weeks,” says mom.

It’s at this point they continue the conversation while I convulse with laughter on the floor.  Mom’s too busy hanging on my Partner’s every manly word to ask why.

Monday 12

Isn’t it infuriating when the security swipe into the building does its dying swan imitation and you can’t get the flipping door open. 

Beep.  Push. Nothing.

Beep.  Push.  Nothing.  “Bugger!”

Beep beep beep.  “Oh for crying out loud!”  Beep push.  “You stupid thing.”  Beep push.  “Bloody useless piece of - “

Door suddenly opens.  On the other side stands a man, staring at me in horror.  I smile.  He slithers passed me as close to the wall as he can get.

Something that does work, however, is my spanking new MP3 player which arrived today (yippeeee!) - Creative Zen Micro if you’re interested, only one that comes with a radio so I can listen to Elliot Webb’s phone tap every morning.   Transferred nearly 3 gigs of music onto it when I got home, think that might be enough to get me to work and back for the week.

Tuesday 13

First day with MP3 player.  It’s so cute.  Went out at lunch specifically so I could walk around Birmingham city centre showing off my white headphones (which are huge, like squeezing dinner plates into plugholes). 

Don’t the headphone thingies come on such long leads?  Any day now there’s going to be a headline in the Evening Mail: ‘Secretary found wrapped in headphone cocoon in Birmingham city centre’.  They’re rather less generous with the USB cable, which is about 6 inches long and means I have to crawl under the desk in our study to plug it into the computer.

Walking across Victoria Square back to the office, Meatloaf’s Bat out of Hell started up.  The urge to fall to my knees and headbang whilst playing air guitar or at least do some strenuous arm pounding was very very great, but I managed to control myself (rock chick is so hard to do in a suit).

Wednesday 14

Concentrated conversations: this is what isolated secretaries do when they go for a fag.  I have mates on other floors who email me “Now?” (or, more creatively, “====~~~ ?”) and we rush down to the basement to catch up.  Of course, it only takes five minutes to smoke a cigarette, so conversations are somewhat rushed:

ME: Oh-my-god-drag-if-that-printer-plays-up-one-more-time-I’m-exhale-throwing-it-through-the-drag-flipping-window -

MATE: know-drag-exactly-what-you-mean-exhale-boss-is-going-the-same-way-if-she-doesn’t-stop-drag-complaining -

ME: exhale-and-the-IT-department-are-drag-rubbish-when-you-ring-them-up exhale,-especially-if-you-get-the-one-who-knows-drag-Absolutely-Nothing -

MATE: exhale-she-just-won’t-stop-drag-dictating-and-she-knows-I’ve-got-exhale-loads-on-at-the-moment-drag-doing-anything-interesting-the-exhale-weekend

ME:-my-bosses-same-drag-swear-they’re-ingesting-duracell-batteries-exhale-just-planning-to-relax-weekend-how-about-drag-you

MATE: retrieving-sanity-drag-dealing-with-kids-shopping-usual-joys-of-life-exhale-bloody-weather’s-crap-ain’t-it

ME: exhale-yeah-and-they-say-our-drag-summer’s-are-warmer-because-of-exhale-global-heating-wouldn’t-call-this-a-decent-drag-summer-would-you

MATE:-nah-drag-did-you-see-that-programme-last-night …

You get the drift.  Can be quite stimulating.  Some days (because I sit alone, all alone) going for a cigarette is the only decent conversation I get.

Thursday 15

The whole department is moving to another floor (at last, secretarial company after months of enforced isolation!).  In anticipation, I email my bosses:

Dear Bosses,

Please bear in mind that on Thursday and Friday I will be filing, boxing, archiving and packing all filing cabinets and desks, and unpacking it all on Monday at our 'new location'.  Work may be a little delayed.  Secretary may also be a bit knack ... tired.

I thank you.

Cleared off my desk.  How I’m going to work without my 117 post it notes on my partition walls I don’t know.  And so many decisions to make … do I take the “Illegitimi non carborundum” print with me to my new location or (bearing in mind my boss speaks Latin) bin it?  Will my inspirational picture “Idiocy - Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups” offend the secretaries I’ll now be working with? (more anti-inspiration here).

I had to move huge crates full of files.  I managed most of them myself (trooper that I am) but needed help with one particularly heavy one.  I nabbed a passing boss, “Can you give me a hand with this?” I asked.  His face held the expression of a man who’s just been asked to remove one of his testicles using a paperclip.  “Er, just a sec,” he said, and rushed off.  I wasn’t sure if he was coming back.  Long minutes later, he returned and spent a whole 5 seconds lifting said box.  I didn’t thank him, I didn’t think he deserved it.

Friday 16

Had loads of sorting and packing to do, plus two dictations, one 10 minutes long, one 2 minutes long.  Thought I'd do the 2 minute dictation first to get it out of the way.  Took me 2 hours! (copy typing, photocopier, etc. etc.)  10 minute dictation took ... 10 minutes.

A mate told me she’d just bought a piece of fruit for lunch.  “What fruit?” I asked.  “Dunno,” she said, “Its like a tangerine, only bigger.”  “An orange?” I suggested.  “Yeah, that’s it.”   !!!!!!

My other boss gave me some handwritten copy to type up.  His writing was barely legible.  “Sorry about that,” he said, “Wrote it while I was on the plane back from Edinburgh yesterday.”  “Lot of turbulence, was there?” I asked.  Fortunately, he laughed.

Packed and stacked 30 giant crates.  I now look like a very exhausted Arnold Swartzennergery. 

Thank God it’s Friday.

Saturday 17

We were out on our travels and decided to pull into the local park to collect acorns for the squirrels.  Just as we turned into the car park, a woman in a motorised wheelchair blocked our path, so we stopped.  Blow me if it wasn't my ex-mother in law ("the evil one"). I wanted to leap on the accelerator.  Instead, I wound down my window.

We eyed each other warily.  "Alright?" I said.  "Yeah," she replied, eyeballing me from her bum-hole face, "You?" 

I wanted to say, 'Yeah, I'm bloody brilliant, my life's improved no end since I got you out of my life.  "Fine," I said.

"How's your mom?" she asked pointedly.  She and my mother used to be friends of sorts, but months before I'd asked my ex to persuade her to stop calling my mother so much because the constant phonecalls and incessant complaining were making my mom depressed.  The evil one took the hump (no surprise there) and they fell out.  My mom was hugely relieved. 

"My mom's fine," I said, holding the glare (don't even try intimidating me, woman), "We've just been to see her."

"Oh."  Her glare intensified.  I smiled - such a silly, malicious, lonely old woman.  Made my life a misery for years.  Seems she got what she deserved in the end.

We drove off.  We went acorn hunting, me and my handsome Yorkshireman laughing in the dappled sunshine beneath oak trees.

I guess I got what I deserved in the end, too.

My Partner has been invited to a social event that he doesn’t want to attend, but isn’t sure of the day so can’t excuse himself ahead of time.  So I drew up a list of excuses that we can both use (because we decided ages ago that we ‘don’t do social stuff’ any more):

 Monday:           We attend the local potholing club (is that where you investigate potholes in the road?)

Tuesday:           Bungee jumping session

Wednesday:     Swingers meeting (snort)

Thursday:         Extreme sports club

Friday:              Tarot and crystal reading classes

Saturday:          Nudist night

Sunday:            Church (is there a church for confirmed atheists?  Oh yeah, its called the pub!)

Sorted.

Monday 19

Oh! My! God!

Spent last Thursday and Friday packing my department into huge plastic crates. Today I unpacked them in their new location.

Chaos doesn’t even begin to describe.  I arrived at my unfamiliar desk to find it surrounded by another secretary’s crates with the secretary pretty much on the verge of a meltdown.  I asked her to move some so I could actually sit down, and the meltdown occurred right in front of my eyes.

I started up my computer.  It wouldn’t boot up.  At all.

Not a good start.

I began the unpacking.  And changed the toners in two printers.  And tried to find stuff that had gone AWOL.  And sorted out my absent boss’s desk.  And dealt with my other boss’s queries.  And tried to get the IT department to fix my computer (took two and a half hours!).  And took what seemed like a million telephone messages for other people because other people were unpacking and never at their desks.

And managed to not scream or slap anyone.

Or throw up my hands and leave the building.

Tuesday 20

Our new stationery cupboard is bereft of stationery – a few old pens, the wrong coloured folders, and some paper.  As I’m now ordering for the whole floor, I sent out an email.

“I’m doing stationery orders.  I won’t be ordering for secret stashes in various filing cabinets.  If you have a secret stash, please empty it into the stationery cupboard.”

Three pens and a writing pad appear.  Hmmm.  I walk around the office opening filing drawers packed with pristine boxes and multiple packs.  “This has to go in the cupboard,” I say firmly – I’ve never given ‘direct orders’ before and I think I’m pretty good at it, which is worrying. 

The drawers are emptied with much muttering under breaths.  I tidy up the cupboard.  And finish unpacking.  And try to keep up with the onslaught of work.

Exhausting.

Thursday 22

One of the secretaries (who’s sense of humour is like dry ice – I can’t look at/speak to her without wanting to laugh) is having problems with a firm of solicitor's regarding a family will.  They keep losing everything.  I heard her on the phone today saying, in a dangerously low tone, “What I want you to do is find the documents and then I want you to do the job I’m paying you for, is that clear?” 

“It’s not [NAME OF SOLICITORS] is it?” I say as a joke.

Her eyes widen.  “Yes, how did you know?”

“No!" I gasp, "I used them for my divorce.  They were so incompetent I actually complained about them to the Law Society and they halved my legal bill.”

She said she would probably be doing the same.

Amazing the company's still in business.

[See here for my full divorce experience]

Getting home was a complete nightmare.  The bus stops were seething with crowds, but buses drove passed without stopping because they were already packed to the rafters.

I waited 25 minutes for my bus, then desperately jumped on one that went in the general direction of home.

Traffic was appalling, verging on gridlock.  I could feel my life force slowly ebbing away.  I eventually get off and walk the rest of the way home.  Takes me 20 minutes.

Crash through the front door an hour and a half after leaving work. 

Lie down on living floor.

Fall asleep.

Friday 23

Its pay day, including our new pay rises (I’ll actually break even every month – a first!).  I decide we need to celebrate.

I had a ‘50% off’ card given to me by a rather dishy Frenchman on Colmore Row.  I gather up a group of secretaries and we toddle off to the French restaurant – exorbitantly expensive, but not too bad at half price.

Its posh; underground and filled with suits-on-expense accounts posh.  We yak and order.  Our food arrives.  I say out loud, “Oh.  I guess they’ll be bringing the rest of it out in a minute.”

They didn’t.

Two ‘medallions of beef’ roughly the size of, well, medallions, and a small pile of sliced potatoes.  The red wine sauce was just visible on the vast expanse of empty plate.  £12.  I paid £6 and still thought it was too much.

But the yakking was good.  Until the bill arrived.

Seven of us.  £46 bill.  “£7 each,” I said, getting my purse.

But no.  These are women.  And what do women do at the end of meals?

They huddle round the receipt trying to work out how much each of them have to pay.  “It’s just £7 each,” I say again, but nobody’s listening, they’re too busy arguing over who had what. 

When one of them says, “I have a calculator in my bag,” I throw down a tenner.  “I'm off for a fag," I tell them, and left them to it.

When I get back to the office I notice something is different.  Something has changed.  My desk no longer feels alien or unwelcoming, a place of chaotic endurance.

I’ve settled in!

Saturday 24

Birmingham City Council apparently decided not to set up an ‘emergency fund’ for the people who had their houses damaged in the Birmingham tornado a few weeks ago (“Tornado alley” they’re calling it because apparently a tornado occurred there earlier in the century – wait while I stop laughing).  Somebody else has decided to set one up instead (and not this one, either).  Some people are questioning why a fund wasn’t set up before.  Other people think the same way I do.

It was freak weather.  Houses got damaged (though thankfully nobody was killed).  I could have my roof blown off by a gust of wind or my house could be damaged by an out of control lorry or crashing UFO .  My insurance would cover it, because I pay insurance premiums every month. 

I won’t be contributing to the Birmingham Tornado fund because what happened in Birmingham isn’t the same as what happened in New Orleans or (now) Texas, where real tornados decimated people’s lives. 

I won’t be contributing to the fund because I refuse to pay for people who couldn’t be bothered to fork out for house insurance. 

It’s as simple as that.

End of rant.

We went to B&Q to buy a replacement strip light for the kitchen, and came out with a zillion watt torch that doesn’t need batteries.  It’s a huge thing like Mulder and Scully carried in the X-Files.  Couldn’t wait for it to get dark.

Switched it on in the garden.  The whole world lit up!  Took it in the greenhouse at the bottom of the garden and the tomatoes started ripening.  Lit up a massive tree and spotted two reflective eyes in the branches … oooh, excitement, nocturnal wildlife (an owl? A fox? A panda maybe?  Nah, just a seriously pissed off cat).

We could even light up the clouds with this huge beam of light.  But then a helicopter suddenly altered its course and came towards it, and three doors down a neighbour screamed, “What’s that in the clouds?!” so we shut it off.

Great for crawling under the desk in our study to get at the generously supplied MP3 cable, though.

Monday 26

There’s a new shop in Birmingham.  Not something that usually excites me, but this is Hawkin’s Bazaar in the Pallasades.  It’s full of toys!!!  Jackstones, smiley stress balls, goo balls, Newton’s cradle, giant pencils, glow in the dark thingies, and sterilised owl’s vomit that you can dissect to see what its eaten (!).  Fabulous stuff.

I bought a glass eyeball.  I took it back to the office.  I went up to every secretary on my floor and said, “Oh, I think I’ve got something in my eye,” then dropped the eyeball on their desks.  Some screamed.  Some froze in horror and just stared at this orb looking up at them.  A few said, “You’re not normal.”

I think senility has begun and I’m reverting back to childhood.

Or else Empty Nest Syndrome is forcing me to surround myself with toys in memory of my absent children (sniff).

Wednesday 28

Lunch with my sister and mother, who actually turned up early for once!  Cappuccino at Coffee Republic on New Street.  It was raining so we sat inside, my sister going into gruesome detailed about delivering babies (she’s a midwife), my mother going into gruesome detail about warts (for unknown reasons), while I and the rest of the café held our heads in our hands and grimaced a lot.

Afterwards, I didn’t want to go back to work (nothing new there then), so mom wrote me a note:

“Dear Boss, Please can my daughter be excused this afternoon because she’s feeling very lazy.  Love, mommy x.”

Didn’t have the chance to give it to my bosses when I got back, but its on my desk, ready for use, like a Get Out of Jail card in Monopoly.

Thursday 29

Woke up.  Couldn’t move.  Not a single ounce of energy in my entire body.  Felt like death.

I have a virus.  What fun!

Rang work and gasped, “S’me.  Ill.  Not coming in.”

Shuffled around house all day groaning a lot.

Friday 30

Rang work.  “S’me again.  Worse.  Not coming in.”

So, nothing to report – illness is so incredibly boring.  Instead, a challenge … see how long it takes you to reproduce this in a Word document in the colour of your choice.  Ready?  On your marks … get set … (wait for it wait for it) … GO!

                                \\||||//

        |           |

       (.)  (.)

-------------ooOO—(_)—OOoo-----------

Now highlight it, click ‘Tools’, choose ‘Autocorrect’, name it “and” or “the”, and watch how interesting work documents suddenly become.